Chandigarh: Punjab and Haryana High Court on Thursday extended the ban on collection of toll from private vehicles plying on the Delhi-Gurgaon expressway till Tuesday.

The court, however, ordered that all commercial vehicles will have to pay the toll with effect from 6 PM on Thursday.

A division bench comprising acting Chief Justice Jasbir Singh and Justice R K Jain also directed the concessionaires of Delhi Gurgaon Super Connectivity Limited (DGSCL) toimplement the provisions submitted by it to decongest the Expressway by Sunday - the day by which the concessionaire has been asked to increase the number of toll lanes from 32 to 53.

The bench appointed former Chief Justice of the High Court Mukul Mudgal as local commissioner to inspect the area and submit its report by Monday.

Justice Mudgal will report to the High Court as to whether the concessionaire has implemented the decongestion plan submitted by it.

The next hearing in the case has been fixed for Tuesday.

Earlier on September 4, the High Court had restrained DGSCL for a fortnight collection of toll tax on Delhi-Gurgaon expressway, saying the concessionaire had failed to avoid chaos and free flow of traffic.

The Court had also directed the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) to hold a meeting with the state government and the stake holder to solve the problem within a fortnight.

The court had earlier ordered the private concessionaire to find ways to the problem by way of putting extra toll collection windows and deploying personnel with hand-held toll collection machines.

On an earlier hearing on August 16, the High Court had taken a serious view of the non-compliance of its earlier order pertaining to decongestion of the expressway by the concessionaire, and also directed the Gurgaon traffic police to file a status report on the methods employed by the private concessionaire on the next hearing that was held a fortnight back.

The September 4 directions restraining the concessionaire from collecting the toll came after the Gurgaon traffic police had moved the High Court alleging that the concessionaires were responsible for the traffic snarls at expressway as they lacked required staff to deal with the problem.